


Three Conversations with Important People

by vatrixsta



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s06e12 Murder Most Foul, F/M, Fix-It, I just needed it, Killian has thoughts and feelings, None of them terribly productive, i needed this okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 23:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10292717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vatrixsta/pseuds/vatrixsta
Summary: Killian is a mass of guilt and self loathing. He decides to do something about it. The post-612 instant remedy I needed to help me survive whatever fresh hell awaits in 613. (Delightful, angsty fresh hell.)





	

Killian had always known there was an expiration date on his happy ending. He’d always been practical--despite the pleas he’d made to Emma when she was the Dark One, he knew that sins were not forgiven just because someone loved you. They were pretty words meant to tell her the only truth he knew--that there was nothing she could do he wouldn’t forgive because he had done much, much worse. That was still true. Truer, it seemed, than he’d known at the time. 

He had always known this happiness, this true love, would be fleeting (it always was for him), but for a time, he had actually managed to forget. He had bought into his own happy ending, to the idea that he could possibly be redeemed for all the terrible sins he’d committed in his overly long life. He was still a far cry from forgiving himself, but he at least thought there would be more time for him to get there, more time to truly prove himself a man of honor. It would be a long road, but he would gladly spend the rest of his life atoning for his past misdeeds and loving Emma Swan. It seemed a worthwhile way to spend the last fifty or sixty years of his unnatural existence. 

There would be no more time. Emma almost died. Could still die, if all that nonsense about the fates of Saviors was true. And instead of giving her the ring, the promise, he’d been so excited about, he was going to take both their happy endings away. 

For a few hours while Emma and Henry showed him one of their favorite movies--something about muppets and that noisy city they’d lived in, he paid it little attention--Killian seriously considered whether he could keep the secret to himself. The truth of what happened to David’s father wasn’t in the pages August delivered, after all. As Emma snuggled into his side, as Henry tossed gooey chocolate covered popcorn at them for ‘being gross,’ as Emma told him he could go to Regina’s if he didn’t like it, as the two of them laughed the way families laughed together, including him… he had never been more tempted in his life to do something he knew without a doubt was wrong. He could get away with it, too. David was at peace with his father’s death. He didn’t question the events they’d discovered that day. The only living person who knew the truth was Killian himself. 

And that was the trouble. He knew. Lying to Emma for the rest of their lives, even a lie of omission, was not something he could do to her, even if it weren’t for her super power. The guilt would eat him alive and it would poison their love as surely as a wicked spell. It hadn’t even been a day and he was already itching to spill this terrible secret. It was no different than he’d confessed to before, the death of a man unfortunate enough to cross paths with Captain Hook, yet it was so much more significant. 

Everything he had been building here was nothing but ash, the foundation built on a lie he hadn’t even realized he’d been telling. He would have to tell Emma the truth, tell David the truth. 

But he was just selfish enough to wait a little longer, to steal a few more pieces of the happy ending he didn’t deserve and would never be able to hold onto. 

He gave himself a week. No more, certainly, because if he waited too long, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do what had to be done. A week would have to do. 

The life he’d thought ahead of him was already gone. He just had to put his affairs in order.

~*~

David had become a friend, the person, outside of Emma and Henry, Killian felt closest to and in turn most responsible for. He had sought the other man’s blessing to marry Emma, but he had gone along with his destructive quest for answers about his father’s death because he had truly wanted to help. A dark, selfish part of him wanted to blame David for this--if he hadn’t been so stubborn about learning the truth, Killian never would have realized one of the many innocent lives he’d taken was Emma’s paternal grandfather. He could have gone on with his life in blissful ignorance, remembering that man’s face, carrying the guilt of his actions, but never aware of the personal significance they now held for him.

Yes, that dark part of him wanted to blame David, but Killian valued the truth, even when it hurt. This was no one’s fault but his. His brother’s death had been due to the actions of a corrupt king; Milah he had lost because the Crocodile was filled with a black, all consuming rage. Emma he would lose because he allowed his fate to be shaped by his own weakest, darkest impulses. 

At least she would still be alive. There was comfort in that. They would lose their happy ending together, but perhaps she might still find hers. He could only hope that in time he might know a measure of peace. Perhaps this was the real reason Zeus brought him back. So he could truly understand the consequences of his past actions. 

All these thoughts were something David deserved to hear from him, but Killian knew he’d never find the words. Not when David really knew why he was saying them. So Killian would say goodbye to David, the man who was more a brother to him than he’d had in three centuries, and he would do so on his own terms, before whatever camaraderie existed between them dissolved by betrayal and anger. 

“So what did you want to talk about?” David asked as he took a seat at the head of the table. Snow slept behind him, the curse keeping them ever separated. Baby Neal babbled happily his crib, just waking from a nap. 

“Ah, I realized I never actually told you something,” Killian admitted. He looked David in the eye, his conscience berating him, but he had to do it this way. Had to say it when David might actually hear it, might actually believe he meant it. “I’m sorry about your father,” he said gruffly, the words nearly choking him. 

David smiled, the expression turning Killian’s stomach. “I appreciate the sentiment, but if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d have gone down a much different, much darker path.” David chuckled. “Despite your clever misdirect about Emma, I know that I’ll never be able to truly repay that debt.” 

“You owe me nothing,” Killian said sharply, forcing a smile to his face to lessen the tension in the room. “Truly. I could never have abandoned you on your course. You would have done the same for me.” And there would be no dark revelation from the past. Prince Charming may have done one or two awful things in his day, but his sins weren’t so numerous that he lost track of them from time to time. 

“Whatever you say,” David laughed, holding up a hand in surrender. “So, when are you going to pop the big question? It’s harder than you might imagine keeping it a secret from Snow. She’s gonna start planning the wedding the second she sees the ring.” 

“You won’t have to keep anything from Snow by the end of the week,” Killian promised. He politely took a sip of the tea David had made him and stood to leave as David moved to check on his lad.

For just a moment, he watched David scoop the little prince into his arms; watched as he pressed a soft kiss to his son’s brow. He’d only held the baby once before, when Snow had been preoccupied and Emma and David were bent over a box of case files. Cradling the babe to his chest had put all kinds of insane ideas in his head, utterly ludicrous hopes for the future. 

He wanted to ask David if he could hold him one more time, but knew it would be too suspicious. Besides, even his villainous heart could only watch so many dreams die at the same time. 

~*~

“You’re acting weird,” Henry said casually as they worked side by side on the deck. 

“You’re acting weird,” Killian countered, sparing a smile for the boy he’d long considered the son of his heart. He’d felt disloyal thinking it at first, because Bae had not had the chance to be Henry’s father and Killian had already failed Bae in so many ways. But in the end, it was that failure that had given him the permission he’d needed to view Henry as he did. He had failed Bae, but he had sworn he would not fail Bae’s son, Emma’s son. 

But he had. It was just as David had said. Killian had done everything right and it still wasn’t enough. The things he’d done wrong in the past would always outweigh the good. 

“We haven’t gone sailing in a while,” Henry pointed out. 

“And whose fault is that?” Killian asked, gently poking Henry with the blunt end of his hook to show he was only joking. “You’ve been busy. I’m glad you’re still making the time to spend with your mother.” 

“She almost died,” Henry said like it explained everything. It did. Henry cleared his throat. “I’m not really into losing another parent, you know?” 

“Aye, lad,” Killian agreed. “That’s actually what I wanted us to talk about, in part.” 

Henry narrowed his eyes. “Are you dying?” 

Killian laughed. It actually felt good to do so, though it was most certainly gallows humor. “I’m not dying, lad,” he assured the boy. “I suppose I wanted to make you a promise of sorts.” 

“If this is about that ring you’ve been carrying around, you know, I’m cool with it,” Henry said, surprising Killian on two levels with his words. 

“How did you know?” Killian asked. 

“For a pirate you really suck at hiding treasure,” Henry pointed out. “You put it out in the shed again and…” The boy looked ashamed, ducking his head. “I thought maybe you were hiding something. And you were, just not…” 

“It’s all right, Henry,” Killian said.

“It’s not,” Henry argued. “I get why you had the shears before. I know you would never… you would never do something to hurt us. I know that.” 

A knife to the gut would hurt less than this conversation.

“Aye,” Killian rasped out. “That’s… that’s along the lines of the promise I want to make to you.” He cleared his throat. “No matter your mother’s answer, no matter what the future brings, you have my promise that I will spend the rest of my life protecting hers. You will not lose her as long as there is breath in my body. I swear it.” 

Henry smiled, a sad little expression that seemed much too old for his years. “You can’t make a promise like that,” Henry said at last. “I mean, I appreciate it and I believe you would do anything you could to save her. You’d die for her. For me. You’ve done it a couple of times already.” 

They both chuckled. 

“I’m glad you’re going to protect her,” Henry said. “But I’d rather you just stay with her. Love her. No one’s ever really done that for her before.” 

Killian tilted his head. “Your father had reasons for--”

Henry waved him off. “I know. I don’t… I don’t blame him, really. Mom wouldn’t want me to, anyway. He didn’t mean to hurt her so bad, but… he still did, you know? He made her cry. You make her really happy. That’s what I want you to do. I want you to keep making her happy.” 

It was the one promise Killian knew he could no longer make. He forced a smile on his face and Henry seemed satisfied by it.

~*~

It wasn’t that he’d decided not to fight for Emma. He would fight the battle of his life to prove that he was sorry, to beg her forgiveness, to beg her to look at him the way she always did, like he was some kind of hero, like he was everything to her. He would fight with every breath in his body.

Killian just knew that he was going to lose. 

No matter which way he examined it, how he delivered the news, what moment he chose, whether he told Emma first or David or, in an especially horrible idea, both of them at once, it ended the same: she would never look at him the same way again, the way she did now. She once told him that what happened in his past wouldn’t change the way she felt about him now and he knew she’d believed it at the time, but he knew this would be asking too much of her pure, beautiful heart. 

He saw the way she was with Regina, whom she had forgiven certainly, who she considered family, but who Emma could never forget was the person responsible for her horrific childhood. Regina had redeemed herself, worked every day to make herself better, but on some level, Emma still saw her as the Evil Queen. There was a distance between them that would always be there. It was nothing that kept them from being friends, from co-parenting Henry, from working side by side. But it was a wall Emma put up, an armor she still needed with Regina. 

It broke his heart that there would be a wall between them now, that Emma would put her armor back on around him, assuming she wished to be around him at all.

So he acted the pirate once again. He made furious, fervent love to Emma every chance he got. His parting from her was akin to losing another limb. Worse, as he had to remind himself to breathe every time he thought a few steps ahead and realized she would in all likelihood ask him to leave their house, that he would no longer wake beside her in bed each morning, would no longer eat the disgusting concoctions she created with a smile, would no longer be part of the family they’d created, him, Emma and Henry. 

He would never ask her to marry him. She might even still say yes, there was a chance at least, because they didn’t call it true love for nothing, but it would not be the future he’d allowed himself to dream of and it certainly wouldn’t be the happy ending she deserved. 

“You’re hiding something from me.” 

He sat at their kitchen table staring at his empty flask. He’d been so lost in his thoughts (routine for him these past few days) he hadn’t heard her enter. He wanted to deny her words. Wanted to greedily covet the last days he’d allowed himself, but he no longer had the stomach to lie to her directly. 

Yet still when he opened his mouth, he could not find the words. A tear slipped down his cheek and he rubbed at it angrily with the backs of his knuckles. He didn’t deserve her kindness or her comfort and she would offer both if she had a sense of how badly he was hurting. 

“You’ve been off for days,” Emma continued, sensing his volatile mood for she did not move to touch him, to comfort him. She sat at the table next to him, her body turned in his direction, open and loving and so trusting. “You know you can talk to me. There’s nothing you could say that would ever change the way I feel about--”

“I murdered your grandfather in cold blood,” he snapped, raising his head to meet her gaze at last. Oh, and there was almost satisfaction in the shocked, stricken look on her face. It had always been delightful on the very rare occasions he was able to prove her dead wrong. Besides, getting exactly what you knew you deserved was cathartic, in a way. 

“My…” Emma seemed to shake her head, to shake off her shock. “Who are you talking about?” 

“I didn’t know,” he muttered, watching as his hook made a small divot in the dining table. He thought that perhaps he’d like knowing it was still there in this house when he himself was not. “Your father… he asked me to help him. He needed a pirate, someone who wouldn’t stop him from doing the wrong thing for the right reason or the right thing for the wrong reason. He wasn’t sleeping and he was seeing his father’s ghost and I just wanted to help him.” Embarrassingly, his voice cracked and he wiped hastily at his eyes again because there was still something wrong with them, they insisted on leaking. “August… he tore pages from Henry’s book. The truth of what happened to David’s father. Or part of the truth, anyway. Enough. I saw his face on those pages… and I remembered.” He could feel it, the cold rain on his skin, the weight of the sword in his hand. The way David’s father had begged for mercy, begged to return to his son. Killian had thought of his own father, the way he’d lied to his sons before selling them into slavery, the way he’d likely begged for his own miserable life and as the blade slid home, he recalled wishing this boy well; thinking he’d be better off without his miserable father all tied up in the King’s business anyway. 

“I worked for Pan,” Killian continued, his voice steady, if rough from emotion. “Neverland was about secrecy. Nothing could be traced back. I was to leave no witnesses and if I did, there would be consequences.” He laughed. “It’s not an excuse. I have no excuse. I didn’t care about killing him. I killed David’s father and I didn’t even care.” 

He felt unhinged now, most lost than he’d ever been at sea. He couldn’t look at Emma, couldn’t bear to see the expression on her face. He’d done it. He’d told the truth. Some small part of him wanted to be proud, but he had lost the ability to feel anything but shame. 

“Do you remember him?” Emma asked quietly. Her voice was filled with a fathomless pain that made him want to end his own life for being the cause of it. 

Her question scarcely made sense to him and he looked up at her finally. Her face was a mask. A wall between them. Something inside him died, some hope that had still flickered despite his attempt to smother it. 

“Of course I remember him,” he said, shaking his head slightly. Did she want him to relive it? He would, if it was her wish. 

“Why?” she asked, still regarding him almost dispassionately. “What was so remarkable about him that you would remember him amongst the others? Did he say something? Do something? Why does the fearsome Captain Hook remember one victim over another?” 

“I remember all of them!” he yelled. His palm slapped the top of the table. “I remember their faces, their names. I remember the pathetic reasons I had to justify what I did to them and I remember when I stopped bothering with a reason at all. I told you once how easy it was to slip into darkness. Easier for me than most.” He looked away from her, unable to face what the actions of his past had done to his present. He deserved it, he knew he did, but Emma did not. Emma deserved the world, deserved someone who would not bring pain and darkness into their home, she deserved….

… better than to be kneeling at his feet on their kitchen floor.

Emma’s hands covered his, the tips of her fingers tracing the elaborate rings he wore. The trophies-turned-reminders. He’d told her that, hadn’t he? 

“These are part of you,” she said quietly. “Every bad thing you’ve done and every good thing you’ve done. It’s all part of you.” She looked up at him and her eyes were like the ocean, fathomless and deep and completely open to him. No walls between them. “Do you really believe I don’t know you better than I know myself?” Her fingers wrapped around the ring on his thumb and gently tugged until it came free.

He gasped, feeling as if a part of him had been taken. She repeated the action with his index finger and Killian finally remembered how to speak. “I can’t--”

“You don’t need them to remember,” she said firmly, her Savior Sheriff voice that you simply did not argue with if you had any sense. “Not tonight. Not ever, as far as I’m concerned, but for tonight… you’re carrying enough weight. You don’t need these, too.” The last ring came free and she laid it gently on the table with the others. Emma picked up his hand and pressed it over her heart. He could feel its strong, steady beat beneath his palm. Gods, she had almost died. How ridiculous a world without Emma Swan would be. How utterly, utterly pointless.

“It hurts so much that you thought I would…. What did you think would happen?” She was crying but she still sounded exasperated. “Did you really think that I could only forgive you as long as the hurt you caused remained unconnected to me? Is my love conditional?” 

“I didn’t…” But that was exactly what he’d assumed. That her love had conditions. He doubted her because deep down inside he knew he didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve any of them. “Your father is never going to forgive me.” 

Emma shrugged. “That’ll be his decision. I can’t make it for him. But I don’t think you’re giving either of us enough credit. I mean, my parents have family dinners with the Evil Queen. On purpose. They’re pretty awesome when it comes to forgiveness.” Her hands found their way to his head, her nails scraping at the back of his scalp in that soothing, deliberate manner that turned him into an overgrown housecat. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. 

“Jeez, enough, I told you--”

“For doubting you,” he clarified. Killian cupped her jaw in his palm, his thumb tracing his favorite dip in her chin. “You will never know all the ways you have saved me,” he said. There was something sacred in the room in that moment, something pure that he’d never let himself feel. Something that had been trapped behind his self loathing and guilt. 

He loved her fiercely, but even after she’d turned him into a Dark One rather than lose him, even after she’d stormed the gates of Hell to find him, weighed her heart and found it more than up to the task of True Love, he still hadn’t really believed she loved him the way he loved her. Until that moment he had not really believed it, in his bones. Oh, how different it felt. Even the weariness of his sleepless nights could not keep the smile from his mouth as it kissed hers. 

Killian put the rings back on the next day. He would give himself a few more weeks to remember the dead, to pay tribute for his sins, but no more. 

He would take them off for good one day soon. He would take them off and wear the only ring that would matter for the rest of his life: the ring that reminded him every day that he was Emma Swan’s husband. 

Killian had never seen her fail. He should have known she wouldn’t start by failing him. 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly, I wanted to use this as an excuse to just dive and roll and revel in Killian's fucked up headspace. I loved that episode, I loved every second of it, including the last two minutes. I realize some fans felt like it changed something about the character of Killian Jones... but it didn't, not for me. Because at the end of the day, he's a man who did bad things for good reasons, bad things for bad reasons, and bad things for no reason at all. That's what darkness does. And none of it changes the journey he's taken. If anything, showing an act like that makes the character growth he's achieved all the more remarkable. "I'm still not there yet" is his arc this year and I think this is the year he'll finally "get there." But he needed one more horrific push and I think that's exactly what this is. Can't wait for nothing to happen anything like this, but still, my soul needed this version. Let me know if it helped you even a fraction as much as it helped me!


End file.
